Have you ever had that happen? It happens to me all the time. It JUST happened to me, today. Why does a song make you feel good and then one day it doesn’t ?

While waiting in a long line at Walgreens, a catchy tune came over the speakers. “Love you… in real life. Love you in real life”. The young couple in front of me could only hold back the funk for so long until they started a suppressed dance with each other.

The song was really good. I liked it, too so when I got to the car I downloaded it to my “workout” playlist. But I couldn’t wait that long to hear it again. That evening, I popped on my headphones and BLASTED that song about four times in a row and I couldn’t wait to go running with the song in the morning.

Blazing down the trail, I know I had a lunatic smile on my face.

“Love you, in real life” blared from my headphones. Bump, Bump Bump! Bump-Bump, Bump Bump! The bass sounded amazing and my run was over before I knew it.

Several days passed, and the song carried me, effortlessly down the trail, until today.

Today, it was just another song. Why? Why does this happen?

It’s like a torrid romance, where you are literally distracted by the song the way you’d be distracted by a new lover. Until one day, the honeymoon is over and the song just goes into a shuffle that you might even SKIP the next time it plays. Skip!

Your once motivating, uplifting song is now just another tune in a database or on a shelf somewhere like a dumped ex-boyfriend. Or girlfriend.

How does this happen? What happens in our brains that causes this surge of “good” and then it’s just “meh”?

There are many articles about losing the spark in a relationship, and I have to say that most of them don’t really explain WHY. Several stories got into depth about the “phases” or “stages” of how our brains work during a relationship with another person, and I thought maybe our relationship with songs is similar.

Several experts have stated that we basically:

Are attracted to someone initially because we need to mate – perhaps some songs make us want to mate, or make us feel more attractive and more “mateable”.

Second is the phase where we dig in, and commit – at least for a while. This is like arranging several songs to last exactly as long as you need to be motivated. Do you have a playlist for your drive to work, or for exercise or mowing the lawn? You are committing to those songs for a period of time to reach a goal. Similar to what they say about making babies.

Lastly, is when the spark starts to fade. Helen Fisher, Ph.D. writes about it, extensively.

“This euphoric feeling is not meant to last. We wouldn’t make good parents, or be able to be very productive at our jobs, if we maintained this obsessive, driven, roller-coaster state of mind for many years.”